Defending Against Atheism

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porkscratchings said:
I said science is the only objective standard - not the only standard of knowing. In any case, no one is in any doubt about a test tube’s existence - this is observable no matter who u are or what u believe. U can’t say the same for God or religion.
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If science is based upon something you can’t prove (what we observe) how is it that you can prove anything from science? It’s just nonsense. Btw, people are in doubt about the test tube’s existence. That you don’t realize this makes me all the more certain that you haven’t studied the lessons of philosophy, yet you are so certain that your scientific method somehow gives all certain proof.
U are confusing two different things - something that is proven to be true, provided the conditions remain the same - giving the same result time after time. That is knowledge based on past experience and rigorous testing. Whether nature will remain uniform or the results will continue to be true belongs to the realm of probability. Yet probability can be predicted with a reasonable degree of confidence.
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I am not confused at all. You are right that probabilities have predicted what we expect to occur in the future. In fact, we rely upon these probabilities so much that we stake our lives on them everyday. You can bet that the bridge you drive over everyday was designed using probabilities related to stresses and material strength failure. The amazing thing is that there is nothing in science that let’s us know whether these probabilities will hold in the future. All we know is that they have in the past. What is it that makes us believe that they will in the future? Some immaterial law that exists out there somewhere?
I do not agree. If science has as it foundation unscientific things, then science as capable of revising human knowledge and correcting errors made by previous generations. Hence science is the only objective standard - knowledge tested and proven, not knowledge decided by bias and prejudice. It is the latter, perpetrated by religion that destroys knowledge and stifles progress. I argue that all theists true to their beliefs must reject knowledge in favour of ignorance defined by their faith. .
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This paragraph makes no sense. You said that you would only accept as proof those things that can be demonstrated through science. Yet science itself can’t be proven through science. That means you can’t accept science. The only way you could is by admitting that things can be proven through means other than science. But you claim that’s impossible.
 
porkscratchings said:
You are. U disguise the fact u are not interested in discussion and inclusion of groups u object to (gay groups, feminists, and atheists, too). And that an imposition of a so-called God’s law would deny rights to whole groups of people - but that just wouldn’t bother u at all, would it?
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I don’t disguise anything that I don’t want to disguise. And what you mentioned isn’t one of them. I believe that it is wrong to engage in homosexual acts. I believe it is wrong to deny the existence of God. I believe it is wrong to have women priests. What I do believe in is that every human being is entitled to be treated with dignity because they are children of God. You don’t even have a moral standard that you can cogently defend that allows you that. You have to borrow from my theistic view of the world to make morality possible at all.
That ‘By your own reasoning if I were to believe your standard I wouldn’t be of good character’ is nonsense. u would not be of good character because u do not accept the rights of anyone beyond ur own group, nothing to do with whether u agree with me.
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Dude. You are in a bad way here. You don’t recognize that the standard you’ve adopted is self-contradictory. You demand that we accept your standard that good character is decided by how many various groups accept it. But when these various groups don’t accept the very standard that you judge them under; suddenly they are all tyrants. :o

Your standard for truth and morality are logically inconsistent with your world view. That’s why Catholics reject atheism.
 
Nepenthe said:
The Golden Rule isn’t theistic either, even if Jesus was the most famous one to state it (there were others who taught this, in other times and other places). We tend to think of this stuff as the ‘Don’t be a jerk’ principle.
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Yes. It is a natural moral law. 🙂 See, you do believe in them after all. And notice (in response to Mirdath, earlier): Natural moral laws are NOT specifically theistic, although laws do presuppose lawgivers.
 
cpayne said:
Yes. It is a natural moral law. 🙂 See, you do believe in them after all. And notice (in response to Mirdath, earlier): Natural moral laws are NOT specifically theistic, although laws do presuppose lawgivers.
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If natural moral laws presuppose law givers then they are theistic.

Really natural moral law is rubbish. If there is such thing, then I suppose that one law would be if you are hungry, and there is a dead animal that you killed, and some other hungry person comes up to it and tries to take it from you, as there is no other food for miles, you should kill him. That sounds like a natural law to me.
 
Hubriss said:
If natural moral laws presuppose law givers then they are theistic.
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Really. Then why is it that I’ve seen many atheists appeal to natural law?
Really natural moral law is rubbish. If there is such thing, then I suppose that one law would be if you are hungry, and there is a dead animal that you killed, and some other hungry person comes up to it and tries to take it from you, as there is no other food for miles, you should kill him. That sounds like a natural law to me.
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And it sounds to me like you know nothing about natural law. But pretending that what you’ve stated is a natural law, what’s the problem? Why is it wrong to kill someone else who is trying to take your food from you?
 
tdgesq said:
Really. Then why is it that I’ve seen many atheists appeal to natural law?
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I agree with Aquinas that natural law presupposes a lawgiver. However, I also agree with tdgesq—that someone (an atheist, for example) does not have to know the cause of something (the natural constitution of humans as created by God) to know the effect (natural moral laws implanted in us and accessible to natural reason).

Aristotle, for example, believed in natural moral laws although not strictly a theist as we today would think of a theist.
 
Alright, this thread is starting to become quite confusing. Who EXACTLY are the atheists here and who are the theists in this thread?
 
GuanYuWarGod said:
Alright, this thread is starting to become quite confusing. Who EXACTLY are the atheists here and who are the theists in this thread?
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Me and hubriss are atheist

tdgesq is theist.

not a theist is agnostic, I think

As for the rest u’d have to go their public profile to find this out or ask them.
 
porkscratchings said:
not a theist is agnostic, I think
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In the words of Jonathan Miller:
I’m reluctant to use the word ‘atheist’ to describe my own unshakable disbelief and that’s not because I’m ashamed, afraid or even embarrassed, but simply because it seems so self-evidently true to me that there is no god that giving that conviction a special title, somehow dignifies what it denies. After all, we don’t have a special word for people who don’t believe in ghosts or witches.
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Is there a specific term that refers to people who do believe in ghosts and/or witches?

I suppose a wiccan would be close for witches, but they don’t really believe in witches per se.
 
Ginger2 said:
Is there a specific term that refers to people who do believe in ghosts and/or witches?

I suppose a wiccan would be close for witches, but they don’t really believe in witches per se.
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Folks who believe in ghosts, angels, channelling thru mediums/clairvoyance and psychic phenomena are spiritualists.
 
What are people called who don’t believe atheists exist?

(Boy, what a set-up question. Never mind. 😃 )
 
I believe in angels. In your opinion, that must make me a “spiritualist”

A blanket definition such as yours seems to allow for only two types of people in the world, atheists and spiritualists.
 
Ginger2 said:
I believe in angels. In your opinion, that must make me a “spiritualist”

A blanket definition such as yours seems to allow for only two types of people in the world, atheists and spiritualists.
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that’s not a blanket definition - try a peek at an encyclopaedia of beliefs.

A person who believes in angels isn’t always a spiritualist - definition depends on the whole set of beliefs as well.

There are more types of beliefs than spiritualism and atheism - what about paganism, wicca, communism, facism, the various types of christianity and islam?
 
I asked if there is a specific term that refers to people who do believe in ghosts and/or witches.

You are the one who lumped everyone together calling them spiritualists.

So, let’s just deal with one. What do you call someone who believes in ghosts? Is there a specific term for them?
 
Ginger2 said:
I asked if there is a specific term that refers to people who do believe in ghosts and/or witches.

You are the one who lumped everyone together calling them spiritualists.

So, let’s just deal with one. What do you call someone who believes in ghosts? Is there a specific term for them?
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Read the damn dictionary. U asked for a specific term - I gave it. If u don’t like it - I suggest u take it up with all the universities who compile these definitions.

Or kindly explain what agenda u are trying to pull here. .
 
MerryAtheist said:
It started with anger over the way the sex scandals were handled.

My questioning the actions of the Church leadership, while alone not enough to make me lose faith, did prompt me to seek answers to other, more fundamental questions, like “Where does the authority of the Church come from and why did they fail so badly in this case?”

In my searching for answers, I did a LOT of reading and soul-searching, and I eventually came to believe that the Church was not, in fact, founded by Jesus. While this may not seem like a big deal (I am convinced one can have this view and still be a catholic), it was a big turning point for me because it showed me just how much of Catholicism I had accepted uncritically. After that “revelation”, I began to question everything from the teaching authority of the Church, to major dogmas (Mary, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, etc.). My research wasn’t based on just non-catholic sources, either, I read many catholic apologetical works along with the Catechism, and I believe I weighed all the information fairly before coming to the decision that, for me, Catholicism no longer made sense; it no longer had relevence for me.

Upon losing my faith in the Church, I began questioning my belief in Christianity using the same methods of researching both sides. Again, the result was a loss of faith in the Jesus story.

What followed was the inevitable examination of the question of God. The big question: Does God Exist? Again, after a rational examination of all the arguments pro and con, I was forced to realize that, while I could not prove with 100% certainty that God did not exist, the arguments in favor of God did not measure up to the arguments against, at least in my mind.

All the decisions to believe in God, Christ, the Church etc. must be based on faith. I was forced to conclude that I no longer had that faith (if indeed I ever had it in the first place).

Therefore, I became an atheist.

I don’t claim to “know” or even “believe” that God does not exist. I only claim to have no belief in his existence based on what I know and have learned about the world.

I do not regret leaving the Church. The world and the universe are subjects of great wonder and curiosity to me, far beyond what I ever felt towards my faith. And my brief life is even more precious to me now that I know it is the only one I’ll ever have.

Anyway, that’s the short version of my apostasy.
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sounds more like agnosticism to me.

you admit that you are limited to your own experience…so you cannot conclusively make the claim that God or dieties do not exist…just that you have no faith in them.

Were the rational “proofs” of God by Aquainis not satisfying for you?

Having “proof” in God would render God useless to you anyway. If God were to show Himself to you…even a glimpse…you would, in effect, be “forced” to accept Him as you would have absolutely defense. You would pretty much be an automoton. Our faith is a vehicle by which we move toward God on our own, of our own free will. As I understand it, God has no need of automotons. If that were the case he would have never bothered creating man…he would have been satisfied with the angels.

You say you lost faith in the “Jesus story”…are you saying that Jesus just didn’t exist? Or did the people we know as the apostles devise some incredibly complex conspiracy to fool people…even people who would have known Jesus?
 
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